“There really only seems like two options,” the half-orc said. “North or south, and I’m not a fan of either.”
“South takes us to Ker, who has shown no love for the angels,” Aurelia said.
“A long trip,” Tarlak said. “And one that will take us through the land of several recently deceased lords.”
“Which means their replacements should aid us,” Harruq tried arguing.
Tarlak shrugged, not necessarily buying that logic. Loyalty to the boy king would go far, as would disgust at the thousands killed during the Night of Black Wings. On the other hand, if the lords felt that they faced a single choice between annihilation and bending the knee to Azariah, well…it wasn’t hard to blame any who decided it better to keep their subjects alive. Not that it’d make things all that much more palpable should they be betrayed.
“On the bright side,” Tarlak muttered, “If we are betrayed, then it’ll end this whole rebellion thing before we put too much effort into it.”
Good job, a voice echoed in his mind. Brilliant reasoning.
Harruq crossed his arms and stared at the empty space where the portal had just been. It was as if he were trying to see through it, to where Aubrienna now traveled.
“The other option is that we curve northeast,” he said. “We skirt Mordeina and link up with Ahaesarus and the angels he took into the northern lands.”
“Assuming Ahaesarus didn’t suffer the same fate as the rest,” Tarlak said.
“A big assumption, I know,” the half-orc admitted. “But we won’t win this war without the angels, I think we can all agree on that.”
“Why not go for both options?” Tarlak suggested. “Take all who can fight north. Those who can’t, we send them south. Ker is a land free of angels, after all. The people’s path would also take them near the Sanctuary, and I believe the priests there would offer people aid.”
“We were at war with Ker before Azariah performed his coup,” Aurelia said. “Are you sure safety can be found there?”
Harruq threw his hands into the air. “Where exactly is safe in this world?”
Good point.
“Good point.”
Tarlak winced as if stung. Harruq noticed, and his frustration melted into concern.
“Hey, are you all right?” he asked. “If you’re stretching yourself too thin, it’s fine if you…”
“I’m fine,” Tarlak snapped, immediately regretting his tone. “Seriously, Harruq, I’m…I’m all good. It was a rough few weeks trapped in the tower, that’s all.”
Neither Harruq nor Aurelia looked convinced, but they thankfully honored Tarlak’s unspoken request for privacy.
“Just don’t push yourself too hard, all right?” Aurelia said. “We’ll need you at your best if we’re to have any hope for victory.”
Tarlak waved her off, having no desire to argue, not with the elf, and not with himself. The thought of wandering through the noisy, chaotic mess of people, tents, and homes made him physically ill, so instead he returned to the stream. He could use some rest. Some silent meditation, that was all he needed.
Taking in a deep breath, Tarlak slumped beside the muddy edge of the water with his legs crossed beneath him. He set his hands on his knees, closed his eyes, and pretended all the worries of the world were, far, far away.
But they’re not far away, Tarlak. You know that, don’t you?
Rage built inside Tarlak’s chest. No, no, no. He wasn’t hearing that. He wasn’t feeling that.
“You’re just my imagination,” he muttered. “A tired, overactive imagination, that’s all.”
Denial is only going to make this worse. That, and have me enjoy this so much more than I already am.
“You’re…not…real!” Tarlak screamed. His fists beat against his knees. His teeth gritted in frustration. He opened his eyes, and when he looked at his reflection he did not see long red hair and lightly tanned skin. Instead he saw Cecil Towerborn smirking up at him from the water’s surface.
You stole my body, Cecil’s voice spoke within his mind. And I want it back.
3
Deathmask knelt atop the roof and glared at the crumbled building on the opposite side of the street. Hopefully Veliana would be waiting for him inside that dilapidated mess. A longshot for sure. He was about to go through a lot of headaches for nothing if she wasn’t. The night was dark, the moon and stars locked away by thick clouds, but there would be no safety here, no secrecy. The fallen bastard Azariah had made sure of that.
“Every corner,” he said, shaking his head. “Every single goddamn corner.”
Deathmask had fought necromancers and followers of Karak who made the dead arise at their command. The difference this time was that they weren’t forced to hide their arts in the dark. The dead weren’t just an army, they were now the fallen angel’s eyes and ears.
From street corner to street corner stood a rotted husk of a man or woman. They did not move. They did not sleep. They merely turned their heads from side to side. Watching. Listening.
“Is this how you’ll create Paradise?” Deathmask muttered. “Under the belief that humanity won’t sin if they believe they’re always being watched?” Purple fire bathed Deathmask’s right hand. “For being a thousand years old, you’re really fucking naïve, Azariah.”
He stood, his cloak folding around him. He kept his burning hand outstretched, his gaze locked on the undead watcher beneath. A single gesture sent a concentrated ball of fire out like a shot, colliding with the undead’s skull. The bone shattered instantly, the necrotic energy trapped within released. Deathmask spun, sending a second orb toward another watcher farther down the street. He couldn’t see that one quite as well, but its collapse confirmed his aim was true.
Deathmask put a hand on the rooftop edge and vaulted into the air. A snap of his fingers enacted a simple spell that lessened his weight. He glided down to the street, settling softly before the splintered remains of a heavy wooden door. The broken and burnt building was a tavern Deathmask had never frequented during the five years since he’d rebuilt his Ash Guild following the war god’s defeat. It was for that exact reason he’d chosen it as a meeting place for him and his trusted second in command should things ever go to shit. And by god, how they had gone to shit.
“I’m home,” he said softly as he ducked through the door. Wood creaked beneath his boots. Many floorboards were already broken. The clouded sky above was easily visible through the collapsed ceiling. Deathmask lifted his burning hand, letting a soft purple hue shine across the charred walls, the broken furniture, and the veritable pit of broken glass bottles near the room’s center.
Silence greeted his welcome. Deathmask tapped his foot and waited. Killing two of the undead watchers would certainly alert Azariah something was amiss, though hopefully he’d killed both before either had seen him on the rooftop. The question was, how long could he wait before a squad of fallen angels arrived to investigate?
“Was I really gone so long?” he wondered aloud. “Surely you didn’t think me dead?”
That was a much better reason for her absence than her having died during the chaos that had befallen the capital. But that possibility was preposterous. Together they’d survived Veldaren’s destruction. What was one more pillaged city among friends?
Except they hadn’t been together. He’d been taken to the Council of Mages, to be tortured and burned by their twisted master, Roand the…
A sharp blade pressed against the base of his skull.
“Move and I kill you,” a blessedly familiar voice spoke.
“Vel,” he said, a smile spreading unseen behind his gray mask. “I knew you’d survive the…”
“Shut up, don’t move, and prove it’s you.” The blade pushed harder, piercing his skin. Deathmask winced, his initial instinct to turn immediately halted.
Deathmask frowned, wondering what in the world had spooked Veliana so.
“I dyed my right e
ye red to match yours, the Worm gave you your scar, and while hiding from the Darkhand in a mausoleum I spent far too many hours making corpses dance for my own amusement. Now may I turn and greet my beloved Veliana?”
The blade pulled away. Breathing a tiny sigh of relief, he spun and smiled at his long-time companion. Veliana wore the uniform of their reformed Ash Guild, dark trousers and shirt hidden beneath a long gray cloak. Her good eye twinkled, her other eye milky and white mixed with a faint blur of blood. A smile spread across her beautiful face.
“I almost killed you when you called me ‘beloved’. How uncharacteristically emotional of you.”
“I’ve had some bad days. Once we’re somewhere safe I’ll tell you all about them.”
“There is no safe place left in this gods-forsaken city.” Veliana pulled a similar gray mask up from around her neck to hide the lower half of her face. “Follow me, and I’ll take you to the next closest thing. Once we’re there you can tell me how in the Abyss you’re still alive.”
She led him out of the busted tavern and across the street, scaling the wall to the roof with ease. Deathmask was hardly so nimble, but a quick snap of his fingers and gesture from his other hand levitated him high enough to grab the roof’s edge. Veliana helped him up, and together they raced along the rooftops in the black night.
“It’s almost like being in Veldaren again,” he said as they leapt from rooftop to rooftop. “Eyes everywhere on the ground, the rooftops our only solace.”
Veliana paused at a ledge, lying flat on her stomach while peering her head down. Deathmask squatted beside her, trusting her instincts far more than his own.
“Except there’s eyes in the sky as well,” Veliana said. “And the eyes on the ground don’t even blink.”
She pointed to one of the many undead watchers. This one appeared to have been female, a tattered dress hanging from one intact sleeve. Ragged black hair frayed past her shoulders, slowly scraping along her exposed spine as her head traveled left to right.
“I’ve seen them,” Deathmask whispered. “Azariah’s little pets, I assume?”
“Correct. If you’re spotted it won’t take long before one of the fallen appears. Same goes for if you kill one. I’ve done some tests, and they’re listening, too, but not very well.”
“Is that a surprise? Their ears have rotted off.”
“And most don’t have eyeballs, either. I don’t know how the magic works, but it does, which is all that matters. Have you seen the patrols?” Veliana shivered. “A dozen of those things marching in a group. They’ll open doors, peer through windows, creepy as shit. Azariah’s not been in charge long but it’s already miserable to live here. You can’t even sleep without thinking you’ll wake up to a pair of dead eyes looking you over.”
Deathmask noticed Veliana was watching the sky as much as she was the ground.
“What are they looking for?” he asked.
“Not now,” she whispered, and held a finger to her lips to silence him. She flung her cloak across her body and gestured for him to do the same. Deathmask dropped to his stomach, obscuring himself as best he could. He twisted his head so he faced Veliana, who had shifted onto her side so she could watch the sky.
“They’re always up there,” she whispered. “Just waiting for an excuse to punish us sinful humans.”
Deathmask couldn’t help but chuckle. “You act as if that’s different than before.”
She did not share his cheer.
“Except this time they’ll do it with swords instead of words.”
Deathmask joined her in looking upward. It didn’t take him long to spot the pair of black wings circling overhead. The feathers were darker than the night itself, the sight sending a cold trickle of sweat down Deathmask’s neck. He told himself he wasn’t afraid of any fallen angel, and he’d already bested one with Tarlak’s help when they first returned to Mordeina…but the image awakened something primitive inside him. A sensation Deathmask had rarely felt his entire life: that of being hunted. Of being the prey instead of the predator.
“He has to be at least a thousand feet up,” he whispered. “Can he really see us?”
“Their eyes are like hawks. Sadly, when Ashhur yanked everything beautiful out of them, he didn’t take their eyesight.”
“Ashhur is hardly known for acting rationally. It’s all about the big gestures with him.”
The circling wings drifted to the south, hovering over the closest neighborhood.
“Hang the big gestures,” Veliana said, rising to her feet. “For once I’d love for Karak and Ashhur to make the world a quieter place when throwing their tantrums. Now, do you see the female watcher over by the corner?”
“I do.”
“Blast its head off when it’s looking the other way, then get ready to run.”
Deathmask readied another spell, this time choosing a far less flashy one. Now that he realized how many eyes were watching from above, he felt foolish for striking down the earlier two with bright purple flame. Words of magic floated off his lips, guided toward the rotted cavity that was the creature’s chest. A living being would feel the heat growing within them, resisting the magic or simply moving aside so the energy dispersed harmlessly through the air. The undead watcher held no such instincts. The magic pooled, a swirling inferno of fire encaged with ribs and rotted flesh. It didn’t take long, just a single subdued flare to transform the body to ash and bone collapsing upon the road.
Veliana leapt off the rooftop and hit the ground running. Upon crossing the street, she immediately spun and sprinted back, to Deathmask’s confusion. She didn’t slow at all, leaping straight through an open window of the home they’d hid atop. Deathmask hung from the edge and then dropped, wincing at the jolt to his knees.
“Vel?” he asked, glancing through the window.
His companion stood atop a rotted corpse, her daggers twirling in her hands. She kicked its severed skull underneath the empty bed.
“Azariah’s getting clever,” she said. “This is bad. This very bad.”
Her eyes widened, and that warning was all he needed. Deathmask dove aside, biting down a curse as a massive spear smashed through the cobbles where he’d stood. Power flared across his fingertips in the form of crackling purple lightning. He glared at the sky, and the pair of descending forms with black wings.
“There’s two,” he told Veliana. “Do we run or fight?”
His companion crawled out the window.
“Fight, then run,” she said. “I’ll keep them off you as best I can.”
Deathmask doubted she could do any real damage to the two enormous forms crashing toward them. He dashed for the opposite side of the street, keeping his head lifted to track their descent. Veliana tumbled away as one landed beside the spear, the fallen’s beefy hand yanking it out of the earth with ease. The other halted above the street’s center with a great gust of air, his black wings spread wide. The bone-white of their armor seemed to let off a pale glow across the fallen angels’ ashen skin.
“Submit for trial,” said the spear-holder. His focus was solely on Veliana, who stood just outside the reach of his spear. “Azariah may show mercy if you cooperate.”
“There will be no trial,” the other said, readying his shield and pointing his sword. Its hilt had once been magnificent gold, but now it appeared carved from a hip bone, the blade jagged and cracked. “It’s him. The destroyer of Avlimar.”
Deathmask grinned behind his gray face-cloth. “It’s nice to know I’m famous.”
He slammed his wrists together, releasing a great burst of energy in a swirling beam of crackling violet lightning that screamed straight for the hovering fallen. The angel raised his shield, wings pounding as his body braced for impact. Deathmask knew it should have slammed the bone-metal apart and ripped through the fallen. The fallen bellowed, energy swirling across his shield, licking at his ashen skin, and burning a deep groove into the cracking center. When it end
ed, he cast his shield aside and gripped his sword with both hands.
Apparently, there was much Deathmask needed to relearn.
Attempting to dodge or flee would only get him killed. He remained on the offensive, his hands a blur of motion. The angel dropped to the ground for a heartbeat before kicking off with both legs and a mighty beat of his wings. Deathmask slammed his hands together. The fallen’s lunge carried him straight into an invisible wave of rolling force. The sound of metal scraping against stone filled the quiet night. The fallen’s lunge turned sideways; his left hand kept hold on the hilt of his sword even as the rest of his body slammed into the magical wave. The bones of his face and hand snapped, and Deathmask allowed himself a moment of pleasure at the sight of his pain.
The sword dropped from the fallen’s hand, but still he charged. Deathmask started a spell, only to abandon it when instinct told him he wouldn’t have time to finish. A fist smashed the right side of his face, confirming his theory. The gray cloth fell from his face, trailed by reddened saliva. Deathmask rolled with the punch and reached out blindly. The moment his fingers brushed skin, he spat out the necessary word with a bloody tongue.
“Hemorrhage.”
The skin he touched exploded outward in a gush of blood and opened veins. The tear spread from neck to shoulder, the spray covering all of Deathmask’s arm. The fallen angel rocked backward, his eyes widening at the influx of pain. Deathmask stepped closer, his crimson hand searching for another hold. Black wings folded before him, then swung outward. Deathmask held in a scream as the wings’ sharp, brittle edges scraped across his skin and tore holes into his clothing. H reflexively turned away, an act he immediately regretted. The next blow hit him completely unprepared, a vicious elbow to the base of his neck.
“Not…very nice,” he moaned, sprawled out on his stomach. Deep throbbing aches spread all along his spine. Through blurred vision, he saw the angel’s feet before him. Good enough. He hooked his fingers into the necessary shape and then flailed his hand outward. Blood flicked from his fingertips and splattered across both the angel’s legs. After a single moment of silence, the blood he’d thrown erupted into black flame.
The King of the Fallen Page 4